


The Voyage Home

by Anonymous



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Back Together, M/M, Marriage, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29302803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Five years after he left Mykonos, the kings of Sparta send Alexios to bring Thaletas home. Alexios fails to ask what coming home will mean, then tries to fix his mistake the only way he can: by marrying Thaletas to save him from his execution for desertion.
Relationships: Alexios/Thaletas (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	The Voyage Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).



The sky was bright and the wind was brisk the day Alexios went back to Mykonos. 

He was standing to the stern of the Adrestia with Barnabas and Herodotos as the island came into view on the horizon; he kept an eye on it as they talked, under the line of the ship's billowing sail, watching as it grew and grew like it was rising up out of the sea. Alexios had known mathematicians and philosophers enough in the years since he'd left Kephallonia that he understood it was just a trick of nature, and that much of nature could be explained by the proper application of mathematical theory, but he doubted he'd ever be excited by mathematics. He definitely wasn't as he looked out over the ever-decreasing stretch of sparkling sea that lay between him and the harbour. He was excited by something quite apart from mathematics, and jittery with it, too. His fingers that wouldn't stop drumming at the rail were proof enough of that.

Barnabas had tried to be as sunny and pleasant as the early summer weather since he'd learned what their next destination was, at least when he was around Alexios. Herodotos, on the other hand, had just asked him how he felt about it: was he concerned about going back again?

"You mean am I concerned about seeing Thaletas," Alexios had replied, smiling wryly as he'd done so, and Herodotos had returned that smile as he'd clasped Alexios by the shoulder. It was heartwarming to know his friends cared about his state of mind, though sort of embarrassing to think they probably remembered how he'd moped around the ship for several weeks after they'd left Mykonos the last time. He didn't hate the idea of going back, though - their last trip perhaps hadn't had the ending to it that he'd have liked, but he didn't know what else he could have expected. After all, he'd known all along that he couldn't stay. Maybe he'd just believed that when Thaletas had said he duty-bound to return to Sparta instead of leaving with him, he'd meant it; finding out he couldn't go with him but he _could_ stay there with Kyra...that had felt quite a lot like twisting the knife. It had felt like twisting it then yanking it back out again, truth be told.

"It's fine, Herodotos," he'd told him. " _I'm_ fine." And as Herodotos had given him a nod then walked away to rejoin Barnabas, leaving him as alone as he could be on a ship the size of the Adrestia, he'd actually believed what he'd just said. He believed it then, too, as the ship cut through the low waves toward the bay and he felt the wind and the sun and the salt spray of the sea on his face. He had pleasant memories of Mykonos to go along with the other ones. He didn't mind going back at all, he thought, even if Thaletas was technically the reason for it. 

The crew furled the sail and they came into the harbour as the sun was crawling down through the sky toward sunset. They moored in the only open space deep enough for a ship like the Adrestia, at the end of dock that was still bustling with people, pushing carts laden with fish and big amphorae of wine. The Adrestia was the largest ship there by quite some margin, which wasn't really a huge surprise given the size of her hold and the number of people that made up the crew. She drew some attention - maybe that was why the harbourmaster clomped down the planks and joined Alexios on the dockside just a few minutes later, almost as soon as he'd jumped down from the rail onto ground that wasn't always rocking. 

"Eagle-Bearer!" the harbourmaster said. "It's been some time but I would know your ship anywhere." He tapped himself on the chest, twice, with two fingers of one hand. "I'm Demetrios. I was one of Kyra's rebels. You know, we still tell tales of how you and Thaletas beat back the Athenians..." He trailed off into a wistful sigh and a faraway smile. 

"You almost sound like you'd prefer those days," Alexios said, and Demetrios laughed. 

"Perhaps I would, misthios," he replied, and he gestured around him at the docks. "I used to spend all day drinking wine and dreaming of our glorious future. Now I catalogue boats, and their cargoes, and I haven't touched a sword since Kyra made me harbourmaster." He leaned closer, squeezing Alexios' shoulder as he gave a mock-conspiratorial look around them. "I'll let you guess which one I'd prefer," he said, then he glanced at the Adrestia. "So, are you here for business or for pleasure?"

"Business, this time," Alexios replied. "But not the kind that needs a cargo manifest. Is Thaletas still here?"

"Of course! Kyra made him captain of the Mykonos militia. He's in the tavern every evening reliving the glory days of the rebellion, just like me."

"So he'll be there tonight?" 

"I'd expect so. The last time he wasn't, one of the new recruits had put a spear in his leg, but he was back the next day. Just...you know, with a bandage and a limp." 

"When does he usually arrive?" 

Demetrios shrugged. "If he's not there by sundown, he's been eaten by sharks," he said. "Let me buy you a drink later, misthios. I'll catch you up on what you missed after you left, not that there's much of a story to tell." 

Alexios agreed, and he hopped back up on board the Adrestia to let Barnabas and Herodotos know he expected to find Thaletas in the tavern in an hour or so at most. Then he jumped back down onto the dock again and decided he'd take a stroll around the town before he went to meet Thaletas. He thought maybe happier memories might help to steady his nerves, which seemed like logic Sokrates would be proud of. 

Mykonos town was just like he remembered it - he remembered the low whitewashed houses around the bay, and the path that rose up out of it into the hills, and the statue of Artemis that watched over everything from high above. He asked a couple on the street where he might find Kyra and they directed him to the leader's house - to what had been her father's house, he supposed, until he'd met his end the last time Alexios had visited. He'd put his grandfather's spear through Pokarkes' chest, felt his blood on his hands, and he supposed sometimes that washing another man's blood off his skin should have turned his stomach. Maybe the things he'd done for money should have sat uneasily with him, or at least more so than they usually did. Spartans killed for honour, after all, not for drachmae, but it had been a long time since he'd been good at being Spartan. That was probably why he was the one the kings had sent to find Thaletas. 

He left the town and took a slow walk up the hill. Ikaros warned him of a pair of lions just off the beaten path and he veered away, not particularly interested in getting into a fight with local wildlife before he went back into town, and soon enough he was standing at the foot of the statue of Artemis. The sun was starting to set in earnest by then and he thought why not - he climbed it, like he remembered doing a few times before, and he perched there on the tip of her arrow as he watched the sun sink down into the sea. He could see the town, and the beach where the Spartan camp had been the day he'd met Thaletas. He could see the two lions Ikaros had warned him about having an argument with a wild boar, and a number of lightly armoured militiamen riding horses along the path - he wondered if Thaletas was among them, but he decided he wouldn't follow along and find out. He could see the ruins on the cliffside where Thaletas had led him to that afternoon, where Thaletas had fought him and fucked him and maybe made him fall in love. Given how it had all ended not long after that, he was fairly sure that last part hadn't been what he'd intended.

The breeze felt different from high up, he thought - it wasn't the same as from the top of the Adrestia's mast, or standing on the deck in the harbour. It made him sway a little but he knew if he fell, he'd survive it. Once or twice, he'd thought about showing Thaletas that particular quirk, and thought about the look he'd have on his face as he fell just to flip and roll and pop back up to his feet without a scratch to show for it - he'd wondered if that was something Thaletas could accept or if he'd find it overwhelming. He'd thought about telling him exactly who he was, and who his family were, and showing him the things that he could do. Of course, he'd been to so many other places since the morning he'd left Mykonos, and now there'd be more tales to tell. Sometimes, wherever he'd gone, he'd found himself wondering what Thaletas might have said. He'd thought about him and his chest always felt tight from it all over again. 

When the sun was almost gone, he jumped. Ikaros gave a squawk like he might have some vague concern about the drop, but he'd have made it even if there hadn't been a convenient stack of leaves and petals brushed together by the statue's base - sometimes the bird was just a worrier. He jogged down the path, enjoying the activity after a few days cooped up on board the ship - he liked sailing with Barnabas and the others, liked hearing him tell his tall tales of all his voyages and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the gods in all their guises. Mykonos had been built on the bodies of giants, he'd said, the first time they'd come there, but the story Alexios knew had gone a different way: it was Mykonos' great stones that were those giants' bodies, ones that Zeus had killed and others who'd met their end by his son Hercules. With all the things he'd seen since he'd set sail out of Kleptous Bay, he could believe that was exactly what had happened. And with the knot in his chest as he thought about seeing Thaletas, it almost felt like he'd come here to do some giant slaying himself. 

It was almost dark when he walked into the tavern. Barnabas and Herodotos were sitting at a worn wooden table outside, eating olives from a terracotta bowl as they argued happily over who knew what; Alexios had stopped trying to follow the thread of their conversations some time ago, but they always came down to history versus theology, what was true in the myths and what was just good storytelling. They raised their cups to him as he walked by, and he suspected when they turned back to their conversation it might have moved on from the gods to him. Barnabas liked to call him a demigod, though he'd never been convinced of that himself. Even if he was, though, Barnabas probably had more concerns for his heart than his health at the moment. 

"Eagle-Bearer!" Demetrios boomed as Alexios walked inside. The place was already lit with lamps against the low light just after sundown, and Alexios could see maybe thirty men there all in various stages of drunkenness. There were dishes of food on the tables that smelled much better than the fish they'd been eating at sea since they'd set sail from Lakonia, and cups of fragrant wine, and Alexios would have liked to have taken the seat Demetrios had apparently saved for him - maybe he didn't always enjoy the way the things he did found themselves exaggerated on retelling, but maybe a night telling tales of routing Athens from the Silver Islands would have been a pleasant one. He didn't get to find that out, however; as soon as Demetrios had called to him, men at other tables turned to look. And as Alexios' gaze skimmed over them, he found the man he'd come there for. 

He'd felt positive about coming back to Mykonos - he had good memories of the warmth of the sun and the smell of the salt and the flowers on the air. He'd felt positive about seeing Thaletas again, too - he had good memories of the way Thaletas had ducked his head when he'd made him smile, and how good it was to fight with someone who knew precisely how to. He had good memories of fighting with him, drinking with him, talking, and all the other things they'd done more privately; he had good memories of Thaletas' callused hands against his skin and his mouth all sweet with watered wine. He'd thought enough time had passed and it might be good to see him again. 

Thaletas looked at him. He seemed different - not only had he cut off his oh-so-Spartan braid but he'd shaved his head almost bare like a boy in the agoge. His face seemed thinner, too, and his cheekbones sharper, jaw harder, like he'd grown up instead of just aging. And looking at him there, in the haze of heat and smoke from the lamps, in the din of chatter and the clatter of cups, it felt to Alexios like he'd had his own fucking spear hammered straight into his chest. It hadn't been long enough. Suddenly, he was absolutely sure that it would _never_ be long enough. The bone-deep devastation that he'd felt was as keen right then as it had been on that final night, before. He shouldn't have come.

"Alexios," Thaletas said. He frowned, and then he smiled, and then he stood himself up from the bench at the table where he'd been sitting, presumably with a group of the island's militia - perhaps the Athenians had been chased out of Mykonos, but that wasn't to say they wouldn't return, and that wasn't to say they'd always be free of pirates and bandits or just marauding mountain lions. The job probably suited him, Alexios thought, training men to fight. It looked like it did - from the way his chiton hung over his chest, cinched at the waist with his old Spartan sword belt, from the musculature there in his arms and his calves and his thighs and his shoulders, he was at least healthy. He looked good. 

"Thaletas," he replied. "Take a walk with me?"

Thaletas nodded. When Alexios turned to leave the tavern with a raise of his hand to acknowledge Demetrios, Thaletas followed him. Barnabas and Herodotos gave him a cautious look as they went by, but when Alexios shook his head at them they stayed mercifully quiet.

"Are you just passing by?" Thaletas asked as they walked away, down toward the bridge, side by side. 

"You mean am I here by chance?" Alexios replied.

"That's what I mean." 

"Then no, I'm not."

"Did you come to see Kyra?"

"No, I didn't." 

They came to the bridge. Thaletas turned, and he leaned back against the railing with his hands tucked in at the small of his back. 

"Me, then?" he asked.

Alexios nodded slowly. "Yes," he said. He crossed his arms over his chest, tightly, like that might stop him wishing he could take two handfuls of the front of Thaletas' tunic. It wasn't Spartan red now - it was a sandy yellow-brown, a shade or two lighter than the tan of his skin was, though Alexios knew the two simple pins holding it in place at his shoulders had come from his old uniform. He wondered if he still had it. Maybe it was sitting in a storeroom in Kyra's house, his red tunic and his Spartan armour, with Kyra's weapons, in easy reach in case of attack. He wondered whether he still went to bed with her at night, if they had children, maybe one of them for each of the five years that had passed since he'd left on the Adrestia and Thaletas had stayed. He wasn't sure if he hoped he was wrong and what they'd had hadn't lasted, or if he hoped he was right and it had. Maybe knowing they were married, they were happy, that they'd made the right choice, would have made it easier, though he suspected it would have been difficult to make it easier at all. Maláka, he hated feeling that way. He'd have preferred not to feel much of anything at all, and perhaps a good dozen cups of wine in the tavern with Demetrios might help that.

"You, then," he agreed. "I was sent." 

"By who?"

"Archidamos of Sparta." 

The expression on Thaletas' face changed slowly. It started out with just that same odd look as he'd had in the tavern, surprised and wary over something that Alexios just couldn't place, and turned into something more like weary understanding. He found he didn't really understand that, either.

"I always knew Sparta would come for me one day," Thaletas said. "We don't just let men go and I haven't tried to hide." He smiled faintly. He stepped forward, and he tapped Alexios' sternum with all the fingertips of one hand, over his red tunic, just hard enough that he felt it like a single drumbeat in his chest. "But you know, Alexios, I never thought they'd send _you_."

"Honestly?" he said. "Neither did I. I thought maybe you'd just...miss home, go back, maybe take Kyra with you."

Thaletas' mouth twisted hard and he turned away, leaned down against the railing of the bridge, and Alexios moved to join him; he leaned there with his bare forearms on the rail, far enough away to be sure they wouldn't touch. It was peaceful there now, after dark, now the moon was high up in the sky - most of the people who lived there were indoors, and the smell of cooking caught the breeze, and if his stomach hadn't been so entirely tied up the way it was, Alexios might have found it in himself to be hungry. As it was, all he could find it in himself to be was fucking dismayed that he'd come there at all.

"So you're working for the kings now?" Thaletas asked, after a moment's awkward silence. 

Alexios made a face. "Sure, you could say that," he replied. "I'm not being paid for it, but I suppose it's a job like all the rest."

Thaletas looked at him, sidelong and frowning faintly. "So you're working for Archidamos out of the goodness of your heart?"

"More like out of duty," he said, and when Thaletas' frown deepened, he added, "I told you I was born there. I went home."

Thaletas laughed. He looked away. "Who would have thought one day you'd be the good Spartan soldier and I'd be the renegade?" he said. Then he took a deep breath. He pushed himself up straight and Alexios looked up at him for a moment before he straightened up, too. The moonlight made the stubble at Thaletas' jaw look darker, made his skin look lighter, made his eyes look almost black, like he was some kind of shade straight from the underworld and not just a ghost from Alexios' past. He'd have liked to have kissed him. He'd have liked to have hit him and _then_ kissed him, while he was still bloody from it. He'd thought about that a lot in the first few weeks after he'd left and now that feeling had reemerged. 

"When do we leave?" Thaletas asked. 

"You're not going to try to offer me a bribe?" 

"Would that help?" 

"No, it wouldn't." 

"Then I'm not going to offer you a bribe." He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes went to Alexios' mouth as he did it, too, as Alexios heard his stubble rasp faintly against his skin. Then he smiled again. "I told you, I always knew Sparta would come for me. When I chose to stay, I understood that. Honestly, I didn't think I'd even have this long." He set his jaw. And he'd already been standing straight, almost military straight, but then he shifted and despite the colour of his tunic and the fact his hair was shaved to stubble, Alexios would have known him for a Spartan anywhere. 

"When do we leave?" he asked again. 

"In the morning," Alexios replied. "Dawn."

"I'll meet you at the dock?"

"You won't try to run?" 

"No," he said. "I won't." And he believed him, somehow, in spite of all the lies that he'd believed before. So he nodded his agreement; they'd meet at the dock at dawn. 

Thaletas pushed himself away from the railing and stepped by him, close enough that his bare arm brushed Alexios', just briefly, just for a moment. He was warm in spite of the slight chill in the air, smelled like a full day of training and half a cup of cheap wine, and Alexios didn't care - he'd have liked to have pushed him back up against the rail and stepped up close against him, got one hand to the back of his neck where his braid had once hung and pressed his mouth to his. He'd have liked to have kissed him, tasted the wine on his lips, on his tongue, felt the burn of stubble against his fingertips as he held him there at the nape of his neck. This was why he never stayed, he told himself - _this_ was why one night was rarely two and never three and he _never stayed_. It was no good wanting someone more than he was wanted. It was no good wanting something that he couldn't have, and so he didn't move from where he stood. He told himself it was better that way, because that way he couldn't be disappointed.

But then Thaletas' hands settled at his shoulders, heavy and warm. Thaletas moved in close, almost too close, almost like he had all those years before. He rested his forehead against Alexios' hair and he said, lowly, "You know, I'm glad they sent you." 

Then he left. And, as Ikaros squawked overhead like he was trying to say, _go after him_ , Alexios did not watch him go. He wasn't sure that he could stand to.

They'd be back in Sparta soon enough, and then his duty would be done. And as often as he was out of Sparta, he thought he wouldn't have to see him more than once or twice a year, if that. 

Of course, _of course_ , he was wrong. 

\---

On the way back to Sparta, he avoided talking to him. 

He hadn't started off intending to - it had felt like he'd been kicked in the gut by the Hind of Keryneia as he'd walked back from the bridge to the dock and sat there on the edge of it, by the Adrestia, dangling his feet down by the water, but that didn't mean he didn't want to speak to him ever again. But as the first day had worn on, after Thaletas had arrived there at dawn just as he'd said he would and they'd set sail for the Lakonian coast and from there to Sparta, Thaletas had spent so much time by the prow and Alexios had spent so much time _not_ by the prow that he wondered if maybe they both preferred it that way. He didn't himself, perhaps, especially not every time he looked up and found Thaletas glancing back in his direction, but maybe it was better for Thaletas that way. He didn't have to talk to the man who'd come to take him away from the life he'd built and the woman he loved, like some petty revenge that was years in the making. 

At night, Alexios slept below deck and left Thaletas up above. In the day, he stuck to the map on the upper deck, tracing the line they were taking on it with his gaze, over and over, as if that might somehow make Poseidon rise up from the depths and speed them along over the water. Barnabas and Herodotos did their best to keep his mind off the issue - they told him tales and argued good-naturedly from either side of him about whether Barnabas had really ever been sung to by a siren or seen a cyclops on the coast of Aegina, and the day passed mercifully quickly because of it. Then they disembarked by the coast and made their way inland toward Sparta. 

On the road, riding together, just the two of them, it was harder to pretend this wasn't a conscious decision to avoid conversation and not just how circumstances had presented themselves. Alexios trusted him not to ride away and honestly, if he'd run then he wouldn't have followed; he'd have ridden back to Sparta and told Archidamos that Thaletas had knocked him out and fled or something like that, even if it wouldn't have sounded very believable. Maybe he shouldn't have felt quite so comfortable with the idea of telling lies to one of the Kings of Sparta but the fact was he was more interested in what Thaletas wanted than what the kings wanted. Both kings and all the ephors had stood by while Nikolaos had dropped him off a cliff, after all, which didn't do much for his good opinion, and though he'd agreed to retrieve Thaletas from Mykonos, he wasn't sure he'd have taken him from there by force. No one had asked him to, in fact, and he'd been completely prepared to fail. He'd almost expected a brief conversation, maybe a bittersweet cup of wine with Thaletas and Kyra, and then an emptyhanded return home. He wasn't sure what to make of Thaletas' resignation.

They paused to rest for the night by the side of the road, with a fire built up to keep animals away though they didn't really need the heat. Thaletas slept - Alexios could hear him snoring to himself under his blanket - but for some time he couldn't sleep himself. He still wasn't sure he liked living in Sparta, though his family was there. He still wasn't sure he liked his family, either, as much as he knew he loved them; Myrrine often had opinions that Alexios just didn't share and Kassandra scowled at him every time he beat her when they fought. Stentor was never going to like him and Nikolaos, well. Nikolaos might have regretted what he'd done that night on Taygetos but the fact was he'd still done it. It was surprisingly hard to forgive a man who'd tried to drop you to your certain death, even if it had turned out death hadn't been certain after all. Sometimes he thought he should have stayed in Athens, though Perikles' death and Aspasia's betrayal had made it seem a less welcoming place, and that was without thinking of Phoibe. Sometimes he thought he should go back to Kephallonia or go visit Markos on Kos, or go anywhere in the world but Sparta. But he always found himself returning. Maybe he was more loyal than he'd assumed himself to be. 

They rested for the night by the side of the road, on bedrolls they'd brought with them from the ship. Alexios would have said he wouldn't sleep until he woke in the night with the fire still burning and found Thaletas' eyes were on him in the firelight. He remembered that look, and it made his chest feel tight and his face feel warm though he'd have liked to have believed that was the fire. It was a look that said Thaletas wanted him, against all possible sense of better judgement, and Alexios couldn't say he didn't want that even though he really couldn't think of a worse idea. All he could think to do was move, pick himself up from where he'd been sleeping and walk away into the trees away from the fire and Thaletas and _that look_ , except that he could hear him following.

He wanted to ask him why he was doing this - why he'd left Kyra and Mykonos and come with him in the first place but also _this_ , that look, following him instead of running, following him into the woods in the middle of the night where the moonlight barely made it through the trees to light the way. He stopped, and Thaletas didn't take long to find him, and Alexios' heart was pounding as Thaletas took him by his arms there from behind. The night was so quiet that he could hear Thaletas' breath as loud as his own heartbeat in his ears and he felt sick, unsteady, clenching his hands at his sides as he remembered all those times, not nearly enough times, when Thaletas had touched him back on Mykonos. He remembered Thaletas' hands in his hair while he'd gone down on his knees to suck his cock. He remembered the heat of Thaletas' bare skin on his as they'd fucked under the stars on nights like this. And it would have been so easy to do it again, right there, push each other up against the nearest tree and stroke each other till they made a mess of both their tunics. It would have been easy but disastrous, and so he shrugged Thaletas' hands from his shoulders and walked away again.

He considered going deeper into the woods and losing him there, but the chances of losing him and both of them getting lost as a result were fairly high. He went back to the fire instead and he stood by it, looking into it, warming his hands by it though they really didn't need to be warmed. Thaletas followed him. Thaletas stood there next to him, but only for a moment before he moved far enough to untie the belt from around his waist and fuck, Alexios watched him, jaw tight, insides clenched, as Thaletas pulled his tunic off over his head and tossed it to the ground. He was naked underneath, all familiar scars except the mark at his leg where Demetrios said a recruit had stabbed him once, and that was it - Alexios just couldn't help it. Thaletas was naked, and he wanted him, clearly he still wanted him, even if Kyra was only three days away back on Mykonos. And maybe he thought this would help his case, or he thought Alexios would let him go because of it, though all he'd have needed to do was walk away and Alexios would have let him do it. He couldn't have done anything else.

Thaletas was naked, and Alexios couldn't keep himself from going down onto his knees on the grass by the fire. He couldn't stop himself from pressing his mouth to that unfamiliar scar there at Thaletas' thigh, tracing the margins of it with his thumb, pressing his face against his hip and wishing he'd never said he'd go to Mykonos. He might have sucked him while he stroked himself because that seemed like the fastest way for it to end and maybe then he could pretend it hadn't happened, but then Thaletas knelt down, too. Alexios wanted to kiss him, but he couldn't. He wanted to rake his blunt nails over Thaletas' short hair, but he couldn't do that either. All he could do was bury his face in the crook of Thaletas' neck and take a shaky breath as Thaletas urged him down onto his back there on the ground by the fireside. All he could do was let Thaletas push his tunic up, and tug open the knot that held his underwear in place. He should have stopped him before his could wrap his hand around him, but he didn't. He lay back and looked up and he gasped as Thaletas stroked him till he stiffened in his hand.

There was oil in one of Alexios' saddlebags and somehow Thaletas knew it; he leaned away to retrieve it and Alexios knew that he should have moved then, stopped it, rearranged his clothes and gone back to his makeshift bed. He didn't. He lay there, fucking stricken, shivering as Thaletas stroked the oil over the length of him. Thaletas straddled him and Alexios just lay there looking up at him, dazed, as he felt Thaletas guide his cock between his thighs and back, up to his cleft. He could hear his blood in his ears, feel his face flushed hot, feel his stomach tighten as Thaletas pressed pressed down; he felt the tip of his cock at Thaletas' tight, felt him pushing down, heard him groan, felt him give, felt the sudden fucking heat of him and in that moment, his passivity was no longer enough. He bit his lip almost to the point of bleeding and he gripped Thaletas' hips, braced his heels and pushed up hard inside him. One hand slipped back as Thaletas rode him, fingertips finding the place his cock pushed inside so he could trace his taut, slick rim. And Thaletas' cock was hard - he could see that when his gaze dropped from his face, because he couldn't stand to look at him, not in the face, not in the eye. They were fucking in some anonymous Lakonian woods, hard enough that Alexios could hear skin slapping skin, hard enough that his muscles ached, and all that he could think as they moved, as they gasped, was that he was the other man _again_. Maybe Kyra would get a kick out of just how easily he'd given in.

He came inside him, bucking up so hard he thought he might have pulled something, his face burning and this time it definitely wasn't the fire but his own fucking shame. Thaletas had the good grace to turn and spend himself on the ground instead of all over Alexios' tunic. And even then, as they caught their breath with Alexios' cock still pushed up deep inside him, they didn't talk. Perhaps it was easier that way, when Thaletas dragged himself up and off and shrugged his tunic back on into place and they each went to their beds. And he still wished he hadn't done it, but more than that he wished Thaletas weren't so far away. He wished he could have kissed him, but he knew that would just have made it worse.

He closed his eyes. He slept again, if poorly. And they still hadn't said a word.

\---

They rode into Sparta the next day, quietly but not without notice. 

Some of the men they passed on their way to leave Thaletas with the kings seemed to know him, and they didn't seem pleased to see him; Alexios understood, he supposed, because when the remaining Spartans on Mykonos had returned to Sparta, they'd gone without their leader. Spartans weren't meant to leave Sparta without orders, or at the very least permission, and Thaletas had decided he'd leave for good; or, if what he said was true, he'd decided to leave until they sent someone to bring him back. Alexios had apparently just underestimated how upset some Spartans would be about that, he supposed. He was still learning things about the place he'd decided to call home day by day. 

They came to the kings' hall, and they dismounted their horses. The guards at the doors opened them when the two of them approached and then Thaletas stopped, paused there in the street in the sunlight that barely seemed to penetrate inside, and Alexios stopped with him. Thaletas looked at him, with an expression on his face that Alexios couldn't read and he supposed that shouldn't have been surprising to him - he hadn't known him for long enough to understand him, he supposed, at least not all of him and not all the time. As much as he'd missed him, even when he'd tried to persuade himself he hadn't, he still couldn't say that he'd known him well. 

"Whatever happens," Thaletas said, "I want you to know I don't blame you." 

And Alexios wanted to ask what he was talking about because nothing about it made sense to him - why would Thaletas blame him when all he'd done was brought him back? Maybe he meant he didn't blame him for taking him from Kyra or for leaving the militia on Mykonos without a leader, or any of a hundred things Alexios could maybe dredge up to assign some level of guilt to himself for, but he didn't blame himself for any of that - Thaletas had made his own choices. Maybe he meant he didn't blame him for the sex, for riding him in the woods like five years hadn't passed and he didn't have a partner back on Mykonos, a lover, maybe a wife, but Alexios told himself he hadn't asked for that. He wanted to ask what he meant but Thaletas kissed him on the mouth before he could, hotly and briefly and not particularly well, if only because Alexios really hadn't seen it coming. It made his cheeks hot and his chest tight and he wanted to ask about that, too, except then Thaletas stepped back and he smiled a rueful smile, and he went inside and left him. The doors closed and shut him out. It wasn't the most successful questioning Alexios had ever been involved in, he thought. Of course, he'd never been kissed by someone he'd questioned, either. 

He went home after that. He'd done his part - he'd been asked to retrieve Thaletas from Mykonos and deliver him to the kings, and he'd done that. He walked there, leading Phobos by his bridle, and left him at the stables along the way to be fed and watered before going home to do the same for himself. He had his own house now, small but larger than his hovel back on Kephallonia had been and much more than he'd ever expected to have. That wasn't where he went, though, because as much as he still wasn't sure how much he liked his family, he didn't _not_ like them, and as much as he was sometimes glad to be away from the claustrophobic decks of the Adrestia, sometimes what he wanted was some company. He went back to his parents' home instead of his own, where he hoped he might forget just for a while. 

Stentor was outside when he arrived, spear and shield in his hands, and Kassandra was with him, a sword in each of hers. Nothing much had changed while he'd been away, it seemed, though he supposed he'd only been gone for just under three weeks this time, and every time he returned it seemed the same - Kassandra and Stentor were fighting. At some point, he was fairly certain they were going to kill each other or marry each other, or possibly one and then the other, and it really wouldn't have surprised him either way. But they looked at him as he approached, and both of them scowled and didn't bother trying to hide it. He supposed he had to admire that about them: they never pretended to be anything but what they were, or feel anything but what they felt.

"That's a heartwarming welcome," he said, as he came toward them. 

"What do you want me to say?" Kassandra replied. "That I'm glad you didn't die on your pointless errand?" 

"You _should_ be glad he didn't die," Stentor told her. "He makes you look like a good Spartan." 

Alexios clucked his tongue and clapped Stentor on the arm just a bit too firmly, then barged Kassandra lightly with his shoulder. Neither of them looked impressed, but they didn't actually complain, and honestly that might have been progress where his relationship with the two of them was concerned. Then they went back to their openly antagonistic sparring - probably where the bruises all over Stentor's body had come from and it seemed he'd never learn - and then he went inside. 

Myrrine hugged him; Nikolaos didn't. Myrrine asked him how the journey had been; Nikolaos didn't. What Nikolaos did was take his sword from him and go outside to sharpen it and by the time he'd returned, Alexios' mater had finished asking her barrage of questions about how he was and if there'd been any fighting, if he'd been shooting sharks or diving into shipwrecks or crossing swords with bandits along the roads to Mykonos and back. Actually, none of those things had happened: they'd taken their time sailing around the peninsula and stopped off briefly to deliver goods to Kythera, delivered messages on Paros, and then sailed on to Mykonos. The journey there and back had been entirely uneventful. The job had gone well. He should have known that meant something was about to go seriously wrong. 

He stayed for dinner. It was good - much better than three weeks of fish - and he appreciated the change of company, even if two of the four people seated at the table openly disliked him and one wasn't in the habit of talking very much. Of course, Stentor did have his own home to go to and both he and Nikolaos should technically have been with their syssition, so Alexios did appreciate that they'd made their excuses to be there with him, at least. It meant something, even if neither of them said the words out loud, and Alexios wondered just for a moment if he was started to get the hang of being Spartan again after all those years away.

But then, once the meal was finished and the wine had started flowing, and Stentor - who in every other respect was a model Spartan - had had a bit too much to drink, suddenly Alexios was introduced to the truth of what he'd done. He really hadn't been expecting it. 

"I still can't believe you brought him back," Stentor said, a bit redder in the face than normal though where his general ire with Alexios was concerned it was sometimes hard to tell. 

"It was an order," Alexios replied. 

"So you follow orders now?"

"Every now and then." 

"You pick and choose which ones you want to carry out and you know it," Stentor said. "Why this one?"

"It seemed easy enough. I like sailing. Mykonos is nice this time of year." 

" _Easy enough_." Stentor snorted. "I don't understand you." 

And really, Alexios didn't understand him, either. Neither in general nor at that specific moment. So he frowned at him, his face scrunched up like he might have had too much to drink himself and maybe he had, with his head propped up on his hand as he leaned on the table, slumping slightly. Stentor frowned back at him. Alexios felt like they spent most of their time doing more or less exactly that. 

"You do know what they'll do to him, don't you?" Stentor said, at last. 

"To Thaletas?"

Stentor sighed. "Did you bring any other deserters back to Sparta with you?" he said. "Thaletas. Who else do you think we're talking about?"

Honestly, he hadn't thought about it, which now that Stentor had mentioned it did seem like an oversight on his part. He'd been asked to go so he'd gone - sometimes that was all a job required, not knowing what the reason for it was or what would happen after it, just the fact that the job was done. Over the years, Alexios had gotten very good at just doing jobs. He'd gotten very good at not asking questions, and not looking back at what came next. 

"What are they going to do?" he asked, though he wasn't totally sure he wanted to know. 

Stentor took another sip of wine and peered at him over the rim of his cup, and Alexios wasn't sure if he was trying for some sort of dramatic effect worthy of Thespis or if he was just that drunk. Probably the latter, given the state of Sparta drama.

"They'll execute him," Stentor said, bluntly, once he'd put the cup down. And, for not the first time in his life, Alexios thought two things at once: one, that he hoped Stentor was trying to be funny, and two, that he wished he'd paid more attention to what the consequences of his actions might be. But Stentor was no more the comedic type than he was the dramatic, and Alexios did tend to act first then _not_ ask questions later.

"Doesn't that seem harsh to you?" he asked, but he knew how ridiculous that sounded as soon as it left his mouth, before Stentor could even give him the look that confirmed to him how ridiculous it sounded. One of the first things he'd seen when he'd come back to Sparta with his mater had been those two boys chased down by wolves, after all, and he was under no illusions about the fact he'd made his home in a brutal place. 

"He's a deserter," Stentor said. "What did you think would happen? That the kings would give him back his house and his land and tell him he should try not to do it again?" He scoffed. "This is Sparta, _brother_. This isn't Korinth. This isn't Athens." He made a sour face then took another mouthful of wine. He sighed again. "You need to learn to ask before you go blundering around Lakonia like a fool. You're the grandson of Leonidas. Your pater is the Wolf of Sparta. Why can't you act like it?" Then he stood, and he wobbled, and he caught his balance before stalking unsteadily away and leaving Alexios sitting there. 

Under any other circumstances, he might have been charmed by Stentor's outburst; he might have teased him about how maybe he cared after all if he was giving him tips on how to be a better Spartan and maybe they were really brothers after all - could he come sit with him at his syssition? did he want to fight with him in his phalanx, maybe? But he didn't feel like teasing, because he understood that he hadn't been teased. Stentor wasn't in the habit of telling him lies, as much as they weren't on the friendliest of terms, and Stentor had just told him what he'd done by bringing Thaletas back to Sparta. Nothing about the situation made sense to him, the harshness of Spartan judgement aside: Thaletas hadn't tried to bargain with him, he hadn't tried to run, had seemed to know this was coming and had come back with him willingly. Perhaps the punishment was worse for deserters who tried to escape punishment or perhaps...he didn't know. He couldn't understand it. Perhaps he didn't understand Sparta after all.

His own house wasn't too far away - it was a fairly short walk through the city, and it was a warm night, and it would have been a pleasant enough way to burn off some of the alcohol he had in him, though he'd sobered up with the arrival of Stentor's unexpected news. His own house wasn't far but he felt suddenly drained, and it didn't seem like Stentor had any plans to leave, either: when Nikolaos and Myrrine had gone to bed, and Kassandra glared at them and left the kitchen, too, the two of them made their way into the room where Alexios had spent some of his early years. They rolled out mattresses over the floor and Stentor, for once, didn't complain at the fact Alexios was stretched out across the room from him. It wasn't a large room. They were close enough that if they'd both stretched an arm out to the side, they could have clasped each other by the wrist. And Stentor gave him a hard, frustrated look before he blew out the lamp and plunged the both of them into wine-soaked darkness. 

"When will they do it?" Alexios asked. 

Stentor huffed. "Probably tomorrow," he replied. "In the afternoon. They like to get it done with quickly."

"Where?"

"Somewhere public. A temple. A statue. The agora." He paused. He huffed out another breath in the dark. "Tell me you're not planning to storm a state execution to rescue your ex-lover. Even you can't be that stupid." 

Alexios scowled to himself. Maybe he had been thinking that, or at least he hadn't not been thinking that, though he knew Stentor was right: it was a terrible idea, probably the worst idea he'd ever had and he'd had more than a couple of really terrible ones. He shouldn't be threatening Spartans and getting himself declared an enemy of the state, and probably messing things up for his family, too, just to save a man who'd been in love with him one second and laughing about it with his girlfriend the next. In his least charitable moments, in his most self-pitying moments, he'd thought maybe that was all it had ever been to Thaletas: a joke. The petals. The things he'd said. Alexios' fucking heart. _A joke_. But he'd never wanted him to die.

"Let's say I'm not planning that," he said, and Stentor made a noise that said, loud and clear, that he didn't believe him. He chose to ignore it and went on instead. "Is there a way to stop it without having a thousand Spartan soldiers try to shove a spear through my chest?"

Stentor hummed like he might be considering ways in which he could make that happen, and then he went silent, and for a moment Alexios almost thought the insufferable ass had gone to sleep. It wouldn't have been the worst thing he'd done, or the most surprising thing given he'd drunk enough wine to inebriate a small village. But then he took a long, audible breath, let it out just as slowly and audibly, and finally said, "Yes, there is. I can think of one way."

"Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess? Bear in mind that if I have to guess, it might take all night."

Stentor made a frustrated noise and Alexios regretted being short with him, just for a second, if it meant he wasn't going to get an answer. That didn't mean he was going to apologise - he might have got up and woken his mater and asked her instead, or disturbed Nikolaos, or gone out into the night and found one of the fucking ephors or knocked on Archidamos' door himself. But then Stentor said, "Marry him." 

"Marry him?"

"You do understand the concept of marriage, yes? People do get married on Kephallonia?" 

And maybe ordinarily he'd have pointed out that for once Stentor hadn't made a show of forgetting where Alexios had grown up, or he'd have said something sarcastic and the two of them would have stopped talking for the night and just drifted off to sleep until one of them woke the other up with snoring - maybe they were more like brothers than either of them cared to admit. But maybe that wasn't the time. 

"I understand marriage," he said. "I _don't_ understand how that would help. Wouldn't I just have a dead husband?"

"It's simple. You go to the execution. When the ephors ask if there's anyone who'll save his life, you say you will. You marry him. You spend the rest of your lives together."

"That's something people do here?" 

"Not often, no. He's a deserter, and Spartan law says he should die, and most of us believe that. _I_ believe that. And it means sharing everything you have with a man who's been condemned. He'll have no standing in Spartan society so he can never own anything you haven't given him. He can't live anywhere that isn't yours."

"But he'd live." 

"Yes, he'd live. But didn't he leave you and go back to his pretty rebel woman?"

"That doesn't mean I want him to die, Stentor. I'm not a total ass." 

"I would."

"Well, you're Spartan. And an ass." 

Stentor snorted. "So are you," he said. 

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me." 

"Don't let it go to your head." He sighed. "I'm drunk. Stop talking. I'm going to sleep."

So, Alexios stopped talking - he wasn't sure what else there was to say anyway. He closed his eyes in the dark and he pulled his blanket up and he told himself that he regretted ever leaving Kephallonia, except he guessed he knew he didn't. He told himself that he regretted ever going to Mykonos when that note from Kyra had arrived asking for his help, but he couldn't quite regret that, either. What he did regret was going to Mykonos when Archidamos had asked and bringing Thaletas back there with him. He wasn't sure if he'd done it out of duty or from boredom or the fact it was a good excuse to see Thaletas again after all that time, but he regretted it. Bitterly.

He hadn't known it at the time, but he'd brought Thaletas back to Sparta to die. He supposed at least he knew now what it was he didn't blame him for, but he knew he was going to blame himself.

\---

The next day was hot, almost blisteringly hot, and Alexios wasn't sure that said anything good about what was to come. 

He ate breakfast with his parents and sister and Stentor, who kept giving him a look that he could read loud and clear, unlike with Thaletas: that look told him not to do anything rash, or stupid, or that would get the rest of them into trouble with him, though he didn't say a word about the things they'd talked about the night before. Alexios didn't really expect him to, at least not at the dining table, and he slipped out of the house before he could say anything to him away from it. 

He knew his pater's adopted son ten times as well as he knew Thaletas, he thought, as he made his way down the path into the city - maybe he should've been contemplating marrying him instead of whatever this half-formed plan to save Thaletas was. It wasn't like men marrying men in Sparta was something that happened often even in the best of circumstances, from what he'd seen - Brasidas had been married to a man, and one of his mater's brothers was, but it seemed to come with legal complications around inheritance and succession that Alexios couldn't even pretend he understood. Sometimes he thought there wasn't much he understood about Sparta at all, when a man they condemned to death could be saved from it by something as small as a proposal. Maybe it meant more to a Spartan man, a _real_ Spartan man, but Alexios was only in the city for half of every year, if that. They could ignore each other, or he could sleep in his parents' spare room. It didn't have to mean anything at all beyond Thaletas' life. 

He checked with the guards at the kings' hall: they'd kept Thaletas locked up in a cell overnight and Stentor had been right, they intended the execution for that afternoon. He checked with Archidamos, nearly two hours later when he was granted a brief audience: they planned to kill Thaletas at the foot of Leonidas' statue, which Alexios couldn't help but feel was oddly fitting, given it was Leonidas' fool of a grandson who'd offered Thaletas up. So he went there, and he sat by his grandfather's big bronze feet where once upon a time he'd brought Athenian seals to Lysander - as he sat there, anxious, jogging his feet against the ground until the dust had puffed up around his calves and washed out his tan to the colour of stone, he couldn't help but feel he'd have rather proposed marriage to the surly Spartan general he'd done odd mercenary jobs for than the man who'd jilted him on Mykonos. 

What he was planning to do likely wouldn't seem odd to anyone else there - they all thought he was strange, and knew he didn't quite understand Spartan customs sometimes, and saving a deserter from death probably seemed like just the sort of thing he'd do. Maybe they'd think it was the best way for him to marry, so he'd have no heirs to teach his bad habits to, and no good Spartans would have to be involved, only a failed one they'd intended to kill. But to Thaletas...it was going to look like something different. It was going to look like he'd known what would happen and had planned this all along, especially given what they'd done on the way there. It was going to look desperate, and pathetic, or like this was some kind of final revenge, making him live his life as a kept man in Sparta instead of dying more or less on his own terms. He just couldn't let that happen. He'd have to persuade himself not to care, if it meant saving Thaletas' life from his own mistake. 

It was another hour before any more people began to arrive. Apparently the kings had passed the word around: a deserter had been brought home and he'd face Spartan justice in the square by the old king's feet. Alexios sat there, watching people come and take their places, on benches and in standing groups, talking, men in full armour as if they'd come straight from the barracks, men and women in chitons, children. There must have been a hundred of them and Alexios wondered if many of them had known Thaletas before he'd gone to Mykonos. He wanted to ask them if any of them had suspected he might just leave one day or if before that he'd been just like they were, always dutiful and law-abiding. He wanted to ask if they really believed that he deserved to die for deciding he wanted to stay outside Sparta with the woman he loved, who was not Spartan. But he just sat there instead of shaking his way through the crowd to ask his questions like he'd completely lost his mind, and eventually Stentor made his way to him. He sat down next to him. He raised his eyebrows at him pointedly. 

"You're the only one who's coming?" Alexios asked, as he sat there sweating. 

"We don't attend a lot of executions," Stentor replied. "Your sister was going to come but I told her she shouldn't."

"And she listened to you?" 

"For once, yes. It might have been the fact I told her that you might do something stupid."

"She usually enjoys that." 

"I told her it wouldn't be the amusing kind of stupid."

Alexios screwed his face up. The face Stentor made really wasn't any better. And the two of them sat there together awkwardly and waited for for Thaletas to be brought out. Mercifully, it wasn't long.

It really wasn't much of a ceremony, and Alexios wasn't sure why he'd been expecting that - Sparta might have maintained some of the more elaborate religious rites he'd come across, they might have been devout and worshipful and all those things, but when it came to law and justice, Alexios had found things moved much more swiftly. The kings came out into the square in the beating sun. The ephors joined them. Two guards brought Thaletas, who was still wearing that same sandy brown chiton that he'd worn back on Mykonos. He looked nervous but resigned, like he understood what was coming and he didn't expect to survive the day, like he'd understood for quite some time, and Alexios really couldn't help but find that sad. He'd seemed like a popular commander. He'd seemed charming and easy to like - he'd charmed Alexios, and Alexios had liked him, maybe a little too much. He'd seemed like a good man, apart from Alexios' romantic misadventure, but he still didn't expect anyone in Sparta to save him. At least not that Alexios could see. 

"It's time," Archidamos said, and one of the ephors stepped forward. He was carrying a long knife, with a thick blade that caught the sun with a near-blinding flash, and he moved closer to Thaletas. Thaletas went down on his knees there on the dusty ground and the ephor swept the chiton clear of one side of Thaletas' neck, toward his shoulder. In that moment, Alexios understood exactly where they meant the knife to go. It would probably go deep.

"This man deserted his duty," Archidamos said, "and so he has been condemned to death under Spartan law." Thaletas looked straight at him, at Alexios, for one last long moment before he closed his eyes. "We intend to execute him here and now. If any man or woman has a wish to stop that, understanding what that means in law, now is the time." 

Alexios looked around the square. Some of the faces there were people he knew - some of the men served under Stentor, some had fought with Brasidas, some he'd met at the training grounds since he'd come home to Sparta. Some of the women were his mother's friends. And one or two were men who'd fought with Thaletas on Mykonos; honestly, they seemed to feel the cut of his desertion the deepest, from the looks on their faces, when Alexios might have hoped they'd like him best and understand and want him saved. But they didn't speak. No one moved. No one spoke. So Alexios did. 

He stood. He raised one hand above his head and Archidamos looked at him. Archidamos made a face that said, ultimately, he was not surprised by this turn of events at all, and as Alexios glanced around the small crowd that was gathered, he couldn't see surprise on any single face once they'd seen who it was who'd raised his hand. He went forward, stepped between people, made his way to the front, and Archidamos nodded. 

"Then the matter is settled," he said. "Alexios of Agiad, take your husband home." 

Thaletas' eyes opened. He frowned up at him as the knife-wielding ephor took his knife away. He looked exactly like he'd expected to die right then and there and maybe the last thing he'd have seen was him. Now the first thing he'd seen as he understood he'd live was him, too, and Alexios didn't know what he should say, if anything; he just held out one hand to him and when Thaletas grasped him by the wrist, he did the same and pulled him up. 

All around them, people were leaving the square now there was nothing to see - the execution would not be carried out, but the law had still been served and that seemed to be the important thing. Alexios had come to understand that maybe the people of Sparta were hard and harsh, but they weren't bloodthirsty - they were dutiful. And Thaletas looked at him as the others left around them, almost ignoring the two of them, stepping around them. He looked at him with his knees dusty from the ground and his hand still grasping Alexios' bare wrist. That just made him feel hotter, and the bewildered look on Thaletas' face made his stomach lurch.

"What did you just do?" Thaletas said. 

Alexios shrugged. "I think I just married you," he replied. "I'm sorry, I couldn't think of any other way to stop it." 

Then he took back his hand. He rubbed his palms against his hips, as awkward then in the hot afternoon sun in front of this man he'd just saved as he could ever remember being in his life. There was a trickle of sweat running down his back under his tunic and he'd been sitting there for over an hour, baking, waiting, asking himself if he was doing the right thing, and there Thaletas was, looking at him as if he'd just told him he wanted to ride a pig to the top of Mount Olympos, or perhaps like that might have made more sense than present circumstances. Maybe it would have, all things considered, because he'd just married a man he hadn't seen in five years who'd made it clear he'd thought so little of him that he was both easily lied to and easily replaced. 

"Do you know what this means?" Thaletas asked. 

"I think so, yes." He looked away, at the people who were leaving, at the path he'd have to take if he went back to his house, and he gestured that way with one outstretched arm. "We should go. I'll show you where my home is." He winced. " _Your_ home. We can talk about how this works some other time." And he started to walk away, so Thaletas had to follow him. He walked quickly, so Thaletas had to fight to keep up with him as he made his way through the city to his house. He was scared to look back, relying on the scuff of Thaletas' sandals on the paths to let him know he was there, like if he turned he might just vanish into thin air like Eurydice, or at least appear with a thick-bladed knife sticking out of his neck. But Thaletas didn't vanish. Broadly speaking, he kept up. And, once they were there, he opened the door and gestured for Thaletas to enter before him. 

Two of the helots working for his father had a daughter, a girl named Eirene, who had come to work for him when he'd been given his own house; she cooked and cleaned for him when he was there and made herself at home when he wasn't, which seemed like as good an arrangement as they could manage without him finding some way to free her that would likely only have caused trouble for everyone concerned. She was sitting there at the kitchen table with her needlework, and looked up as the two of them came in. 

"Eirene, this is Thaletas," Alexios said. "He's...I'll explain another day but I married him today. He'll be living here so please look after him." 

And the two of them both looked like they were about to say something in response to that, though Alexios wasn't entirely sure what it might be - he didn't find out, either, because he turned, and he left, and he took off at a run down the street as fast as he was physically able. It wasn't the kind of weather best suited to running, with the sun beating down and the air so hot on his skin and in his lungs that he could barely breathe, or maybe that was just the situation. He just couldn't bear to be there, explaining what he'd done like it was sensible or reasonable or like he'd had any business doing it, but at least he knew he hadn't died on his account. At least he knew he was one of the richest men in all of Sparta and so even if Thaletas couldn't leave, couldn't take his place back in the army, couldn't live like he belonged there, he could have everything that he needed and more besides. If nothing else, the things Alexios had done for money might have had that one use. 

Saving him hadn't been a selfless act and as he ran back to his parents' house in the searing fucking heat, shame-faced because what did running solve, he knew it. He just hadn't liked the idea of a world without Thaletas in it very much. 

\---

It was three days before he went back. Three days of his mater and pater looking at him like he'd basically lost his mind and his sister asking him outright if he had. Three days of Stentor coming by and frowning at him like he couldn't understand why he'd married the man if he had no intention of living like he'd done so, under the same roof. He really had no intention of doing that - he just hadn't quite figured out what he was going to do that _wasn't_ that, or how he was going to explain the fact he'd run away like that was any kind of solution to the problem that he'd caused. 

There were places he could go, of course - he had friends all around the Aegean, from Lesbos down to Crete, and he could think of more places than he could count on both his hands where he'd have been welcome not only for a little while. He could have gone to Athens - Hippokrates might have been there, helping people, and wherever his clinic was he could always use help from a misthios. Who knew where he might find Sokrates, be he was sure if he asked around he'd be able to pick up his enigmatic trail. There was still a school for athletes in Thasos and who better to help out than an Olympic champion? He might have found Alkibiades in Korinth, or Anthousa would be there at least, and he'd always have a place with Xenia and the pirates of Keos. But he'd spent so long running, so long searching, that for once pretending problems he couldn't solve with a sword in his hand weren't problems at all seemed like something he shouldn't do. 

On the third day, he went back to the house. Eirene was beating a rug outside and gave him a look that reminded him of Stentor in an almost alarming way, though he doubted either of them would find that a flattering comparison. Then he took a deep breath and he went inside. 

Thaletas was there, plucking idly at a poorly-tuned lyre he clearly had no talent for, though Alexios had to admit he found the sight strangely endearing. He was wearing one of Alexios' tunics, one of the few he had these days that _wasn't_ a vibrant shade of Spartan red. And he looked up, and he strummed the lyre with a complete lack of tunefulness just one last time before he set it down on the dining table. The haphazard way he did so likely didn't help the tuning, either. 

"You ran away," Thaletas said. " _Literally_ , you ran away. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that."

"I did," Alexios replied. "I'm fast and I didn't want you to follow." 

"So you thought you'd save me from death, marry me and then leave me here in a house with a helot girl who keeps glaring at me."

Alexios rubbed his mouth. He shrugged. "Yes," he said. "That's what I thought I'd do. I didn't have a lot of time to think it through, Thaletas. I won't call it a good plan, but I didn't have a lot to work with at the time." 

"The journey to Mykonos and back wasn't long enough for the mighty Eagle-Bearer to think of something?" 

Alexios took a breath. "I didn't know what was going to happen to you until we got here," he said. 

"You didn't..." Thaletas closed his eyes and pressed his hands over them. He groaned. He moved his hands and opened up his eyes again. "You didn't know the penalty?" he asked. Alexios shook his head awkwardly. Thaletas laughed and he shook his own head, too. "Alexios, we kill deserters here," he said, and he stood himself up from the table. He smoothed down his borrowed tunic. "You mean this wasn't a plan?"

"Not unless you mean one I came up with the night before it happened." He shrugged again, arms wide. "I didn't know. I knew I was taking you away from Kyra, yes, but I didn't know the kings would want you dead."

"Kyra?" Thaletas frowned, and he looked at him, and then his eyes went wider and his brows rose a little higher with some kind of realisation. "Alexios, what I had with Kyra didn't last more than half a year," he said. "She thought I was the cure for her issues with her father. I thought she could be the cure for..." He winced. "I thought staying there with her would make it easier to forget I met you." The wince turned into something more like a self-deprecating smile. "Let's just say it didn't forget, Alexios. And then we did what we did in the woods that night and I thought..." He gestured vaguely, hands in the air. "When you saved me, I thought maybe this was because you wanted...I don't know." 

Thaletas shook his head. He ran his hands over his hair, over the stubble that had grown in a bit longer since he'd arrived back there in Sparta. The stubble at his jaw was thicker, too. He looked different but still the same, the same eyes, the same lips, the same fucking hands that Alexios had tried to forget had ever touched him. And Alexios didn't know what to think, didn't know what to say - all the times he'd thought about going back to Mykonos over the years and then hadn't because what would he have done if he'd seen them together? All those times, they _hadn't_ been together. And however long he'd remembered, Thaletas hadn't forgotten him, either. And that night before they'd come back here, there'd been no betrayal. That night, Thaletas had just been saying goodbye.

He didn't know what to think, or what to say, so he did something instead. Actions had always come easier to him than anything else and so he went to him, impulsively - impulsively like he seemed to do so many things that had got him into so much trouble over the years. And maybe he wasn't sure that what Thaletas had said meant that he still wanted him the way he had on Mykonos, but when he kissed him, he found out. When he kissed him, Thaletas met him in it, his fingers in Alexios' hair and one hand taking hold of his tunic. It wasn't exactly the same as it had been, no, but it was better than that last kiss before they'd left Mykonos together. It wasn't a kiss goodbye, which Alexios thought helped. This time it felt a lot more like the start of something than the end of it.

In the bedroom, they stripped each other until Alexios' clothes were no longer covering either of them - they were in a pile on the floor with Alexios' spear and the two of them were all bare skin in the sunlight through the room's small window. When Alexios stretched out on the bed, Thaletas joined him. And maybe it took a moment to understand how they fit together again without making one another hurt, but that didn't seem to matter. They'd have time to figure it out.

And when they were done, Thaletas raised his brows and looked at him in the warm afternoon sun. He smiled and said, "So, _Alexios of Agiad_?" 

Alexios laughed. There were maybe a few minor details they needed to share. But they'd have time for that now, too.

\---

There were a lot of things that Alexios had utterly failed to understand about Sparta, from its laws to the way they raise their children to the festivals they celebrate. 

A month after he'd brought Thaletas back, he took him away again. It turned out the general permission he'd received in gratitude from Archidamos for his assistance in the matter of King Pausanias extended to his husband, too: everything that Alexios had, Thaletas had. So, when he returned to the Adrestia, Thaletas went with him. He worked with the crew, and he talked with Herodotos, and once Barnabas had forgiven him for breaking his friend's heart so very comprehensively, they shared tales of the gods and all the monsters that were lurking in the sea. Alexios found he liked to listen. He'd never actually slain a sea monster, after all, since sharks didn't really count. 

There were a lot of things that Alexios hadn't understood about Sparta. This was maybe the only misunderstanding he was glad for.


End file.
